For those interested in seeing the shuttle and ISS tonight, the pass over Boston is at about 9:07 to 9:11 pm. Peak elevation is 50 degrees high in the southwest, the pair will move northwest-to-south and disappear in the shadow to the south. I have not been able to get information about the relative positions of the two - they'll be on the same ( Read more... )

I have started a photo of the day website and RSS feed. The feed is available through syndication on LJ at bluebrook_potd. If you subscribe to this feed, there will be a single daily thumbnail added to your friends list. Most of my photographs are nature scenes, with an assortment of cats, astronomy, city, trains, and just plain unusual subjects ( Read more... )

Due to rain in Florida, the shuttle is staying in space an extra day. This means we'll have another evening overflight of Boston, with shuttle and station moving together across the night sky. The pass is 9:40 to 9:44 pm, fairly low (about 25 degrees elevation) in the southwest. It won't be as spectacular as last night's overhead flyover - but ( Read more... )

If you are near Massachusetts, have even a casual interest in space or astronomy, and the sky is clear tonight at 9:22 pm, this is definitely worth watching. The space shuttle has undocked from the space station, and is expected to return to Earth tomorrow (if the weather is favorable at the landing site). Tonight, the two spacecraft (station and ( Read more... )

This evening, the shuttle Discovery and the Space Station will be visible around 5 pm. The weather forecast is calling for clear skies. Both satellites will follow similar tracks across the sky, several minutes apart. They will rise in the west, pass between the bright stars Vega and Deneb, reach peak elevation high in the northwest sky (55 ( Read more... )

The next space shuttle launch is currently scheduled for 9:36 pm on Thursday. Night launches are visible all along the Atlantic coastline, as far north as Maine. The weather forecast in Boston calls for partly cloudy skies, and I'm going to try watching. The shuttle will look like a bright orange star moving along the southern to southeastern ( Read more... )

I received a spam e-mail today with the following subject line:

Hi, O star
It's like someone calling out "hey, you" ... or "hi, guy with a camera" ... except here I was being called an "O star". And I thought that was kind of neat. Because it put me in the frame of mind of imagining that I was an O star.

O star (astronomy): A star of spectral ( Read more... )

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The News Herald newspaper of Panama City, FL has a photo of me watching the launch yesterday.

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